


we could be heroes

by probablytwins



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Dealing, Fluff, Food mention, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Superpowers AU, University AU, WIP, X-Men Inspired AU, Zayn POV, if you're looking for nsfw/smut this isn't for you bc I'm rly just not about that life sorry, infinitesimal implied lourry, ziall, zouis bromance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablytwins/pseuds/probablytwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>zayn malik spends his youth living the hard knock life on the streets of new york until he's whisked away to a mysterious underground academy for individuals like himself. individuals with superpowers. there he and others are trained to become stronger, more powerful, and to use their abilities solely for the purpose of helping those is need. a hooligan turned superhero? a fascinating saga in and of itself.</p><p>but of course, just like with many other unassuming university students, our former felon falls in love.</p><p>zayn can turn invisible and niall has these monstrous bird's wings and both feel like outcasts even in a school exclusively for outcasts. their minds always wander, but to different places and for different reasons, and inevitably they must help one another reconcile with their respective pasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we wondered what was happening

**Author's Note:**

> ok so a few things
> 
> \- the idea for this fic first started coming to me when I realized that I loved the idea of angel!niall but I'd never read a fic featuring angel!niall that I really liked, so I wanted to try my hand at it, and then I started wondering about what superpowers the boys would have (versus what they always say they'd want to have when prompted in interviews or during twitter questions, puh) and I've always loved uni au's and suddenly I was thinking too much at once and felt super creative and then this monster story idea came to fruition. well not the whole thing as you can see, I have the beginning and I've got the bare bones written down. it's a start.  
> \- this isn't the first ziall fic I've ever taken a crack at but it's the one I've brainstormed the most and felt inspired to do for the longest and so yay here I go submitting it piece by piece to here finally  
> \- ziall is my otp but I'm also extremely partial to zouis and so I'll be doing my best to include Louis as much as possible (nobody told me that he's so hard to write btw? what the hell?)  
> \- the setting is in northeast england, but since this is an au and I do have some artistic license, Zayn and Harry are american. whoops. also everybody's family histories are way different. double whoops.  
> \- I'm submitting this to ao3 one chapter at a time and as I'm writing this out I'm only just starting chapter 4 but i Do have a plot outline my issue has really mostly been just adding the stuffing between each plot point  
> \- if anyone out there would like to contribute or collaborate or even just give a few suggestions/pointers that's more than welcome!!! i haven't been able to consistently work on this fic since I'm busy with college (I'm american (university (whatever))) but this fic premise does have a special place in my heart and so I will be returning to it now and again!!!
> 
> there's totally more I wanted to say here but it's not coming to me right now. oh well. 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> all persyns referred to in this fanfiction are fictional people or fictional portrayals of real people. real live human beings are copyrighted to themselves. please don't ever let the boys or their loved ones know that this exists, they go through enough as it is. thanks. be cool.

Harry doesn’t meet eyes with any of the others. “Look, all I know about myself, beyond the basic facts, is that everybody I’ve ever laid a finger on in my entire stupid life is either paralyzed or in a coma.”

“That’s amazing,” Liam says immediately and far too eagerly, and he realizes it too after the fact, his face morphing from excitable to deeply ashamed in a matter of moments as Harry whips his head around to reply.

“No! No it’s not! Shut up! That’s dozens of people, hospitalized and incapacitated, because of me!”

Liam’s tongue stumbles over his mouth as he sheepishly responds, “It’s not your fault, Harry, you didn’t know, and it all happened way af-“

Incredulous as ever, “Yes it is my fault! Are you joking?”

“You horrible monster,” Louis deadpans.

“Thanks for that,” Harry stares knife wounds into Louis’s skull.

“Well you weren’t being quite accepting of the comfort, yeah, so what was I supposed to say? ‘Fuck you, I love you’?”

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say, alright? You’re you, and,” he holds his head in his hands, unblinkingly staring at the floor, as if waiting for some incredible revelation to strike at any moment, “I’m just me.”

* 

Zayn Malik just had the craziest twenty four hours of his life. He’s still bug-eyed when he arrives at Robin Hood Airport. I mean, first and foremost, he’s never left New York City in his entire life. One minute he’s doing his usual scraping by, helping out fellow hoodlums, skirting around gang disputes, dealing weed (or the highly occasional ounce of coke or pharmaceuticals) to college students, and the next minute he’s awake in some kind of laboratory, being told by a few stern faces with half-genuine smiles that he’s been ‘found’ and here’s a one way ticket to a ‘safe haven for youngsters like yourself’ and… he listened? For some reason he found himself trusting these lab coats, after having spent all his life watching eyes and lips for deception even after years of familiarity, something felt… very right. Easy. Like the best possible option. Perhaps anything in the world was better than drudging along, living from day to day, breaking and averting the law. And when the other party is handing you a plane ticket and an opportunity and asking for nothing in return, what could there be to lose? Suddenly he’s packing his few worldly possessions, a handful of old tees and jeans and denim jackets, and his jailbroken iPhone with a distinct crack running all across, into his one ratty duffel bag and digging through the bottoms of his pockets for the last bits of change for cab fare. He was already seated on the plane, watching the world get smaller and smaller, before he’d even had time to wonder if he was afraid of heights or flying.

Stumbling over a loose shoelace brings Zayn back to reality, and he realizes that he’d just spent the past few minutes walking around the terminal in a slow, mindless daze. He finds himself hot-faced around all these strangers, tourists and businessmen and families and friends and normal people, and not scummy criminals, no felons like himself, and he wishes he could turn invisible.

And then he remembers that he can.

And that that’s why he’s here at all.

Ever since he could remember, and for just as long as he’d been too scared to tell or demonstrate to anybody else, if he focused just hard enough, and didn’t think about anything else in the world, he could shut his eyes and squint until he thought he’d get premature wrinkles for sure and then open them again and nothing would be there. But, quite literally, he would be gone. Invisible. He’d found that it was a largely useless skill, since he couldn’t turn his clothes invisible, he couldn’t suddenly disappear and dash off in the middle of a theft or a deal or something, but he could… well… undress before heading into a 7/11 and freak out the employees as they see a ICEE machine operate itself and then some cash fly out of the register as the floating slurpee exits the shop. It was the little things.

And he’d been certain that nobody knew his secret until yesterday, when a bunch of heavily accented strangers told him so. And had invited him to “enhance his powers under their tutelage” or whatever.

Now he’s on a shuttle, headed east on a narrow and increasingly bumpy road. He barely remembers the name of the village he’s headed to, mostly because it’s not really where he’s headed. Beyond the outskirts of said village, he’s meant to be on his way to an underground location. But someone is to meet him at the bus stop and accompany him? The details start getting fuzzier again as the jetlag begins to creep up on him and he figures that maybe this was just a weird pleasant dream that he was to soon wake up from. He lets his temple meet his shoulder and closes his eyes.

*

It was no dream.

In a flurry of tours and introductions and signed papers, and forcing smiles between meeting instructors and posing for student identification photos, Zayn finds himself, duffel bag held against his back, being guided to his new, his first ever, dormitory, in Hall F room number 415, by an unseasonably tan and fairly muscular yet somewhat petite boy who seems to be roughly his age but as he soon learns,

“I’m almost twenty-two, you know, I know I don’t look it. I like to keep fresh and fit and all that. Not much for me to do beyond bits of classwork, so I’ve figured why not hit the gym or play some footy in the meantime. Might as well have some fun since I know these lot aren’t planning on letting me graduate anytime soon. Which is why I’m the only third year with a roommate, I suppose, they want me to show that I’m not a selfish twat and I can actually share some of my things and my space with another human being. So yeah, sorry in advance for any bullshit I might say or do, I’m not really used to this whole ‘empathy’ thing our headmaster keeps imposing on me. I’m Louis, by the way. Here’s our room. What’s your name again? Sorry, I felt like ten people were speaking to me at once when Grims passed you off to me, can’t remember a bloody thing.”

“’m Zayn,” Zayn mutters, hardly audibly, as Louis swipes his ID card in the slit next to the doorframe before turning the handle and motioning for Zayn to enter first. As Louis returns his ID to his back pocket, Zayn catches the word “CHRONOS” written in bold on the card. “What’s Chronos?”

Louis makes a face, as if restraining a blush. “That’s my pseudonym. You have to pick one before the end of your first term or else they make one up for you and it’s always outright embarrassing when they do. Bunch of cornballs, faculty are.”

“You picked Chronos? What’s it mean, if that’s okay to ask?” Zayn says, still not facing Louis as he drops his bag onto the undone mattress on the farther side of the dorm. There’s posters for superhero movies and Broadway musicals, and pictures of soccer (or football, whatever) players, splayed all across the walls and the part of the ceiling in what he figures is Louis’s half of the room. His side is so vibrant and lived-in, with a crumpled tee shirt here and piles of beanies and sneakers there, while Zayn’s is a pristine blank white canvas, complete with a freshly pressed uniform (really?) laying at the end of his bed.

“He’s the Greek god, or Titan, rather, of time. The father of the modern gods. Thought it sounded cool, you know. Important, like. My power’s got nothing to do with time, though. I can just point at stuff and move ‘em about,” Louis sighs loudly and walks over to the mounds of scribbles and papers that Zayn figures must be his desk. As Zayn observes, he also notices numerous tattoos along Louis’s right arm; a darkened heart, the bust of a stag, a poised songbird, several other smaller ornaments that appear to be little more than doodles. He finds them all fascinating, and wonders if Louis has noticed Zayn’s sleeve at all, but he decides to not inquire, only continuing to silently count the ink up as Louis absentmindedly looks through some papers and continues, “Telekinesis.” He whips his head around to face Zayn, clutching a few scraps of loose leaf. “Can’t believe I didn’t ask before. What’s yours?”

Zayn’s seated on the bed now, arms behind him propping the rest of him up, and he shrugs and studies his worn-out kicks. “I can disappear.”

Louis’s eyes widen. “Invisibility?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so cool. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone here who had that. Heard of someone a few years ago having it, graduated. Are you any good?”

“’s hard to concentrate. Guess that’s why I’m here.”

“Mine’s okay, I think, my power, I mean. I think at this point they really only just need me to prove that I’m not a self-centered cunt.”

Zayn snorts. He’s only just met the other boy but he’s already fairly certain that anybody who finds themself regarding Louis as ‘a self-centered cunt’ wouldn’t have nothing to go on. Nevertheless, Zayn decides that he doesn’t really mind this boy at all. On the contrary, he seems a bit nice, and, even though he’s not really being that way to Zayn in particular, Louis seems like he can be a rather judgmental and intimidating individual, someone whose opinions matter to other people. He can’t help but wanting for Louis to like him, and hell, perhaps even be impressed by him.

“What?” Louis says, sounding indignant but there’s a strong hint of indifference underneath his tone, “D’you think I am?”

Zayn rolls his eyes and smiles playfully. “Nah, I only just met you, man. I don’t think anything.”

Louis smirks. “Well, good then. I think we’re gonna get on just fine.” He sits in his desk chair and faces wrong way round so he’s facing Zayn, hands gripping the back of the chair. “So, where’re you from? Tell me everything.” He pauses thoughtfully as Zayn finds himself trying to sew a response together. “Or don’t. No pressure. Don’t tell me anything if ye don’t want to.”

“It’s cool. I’m from New York City, an-.”

Louis’s eyes bulge. “New York? Same with me! Wow, small world.”

“Wh- How? I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Yeah, the accent, right? I’m Yorkshire born and raised. Doncaster, actually, less than an hour from here, as it turns out. My family moved out to New York maybe around ten years ago, for me dad’s job. I threw a tantrum and did the whole ‘I don’t like this! I’m running away!’ bit, except I did. I did ran away.”

“So what happened?”

“Oh, you know, the typical runaway youth story. Got mixed up in petty crime and all that. If I’m being honest, it’s quite fun when you’re eleven and a criminal and smarter than everyone else on the street. You’ve no idea how bloody easy con work is.”

Zayn's eyes fall on the posters. “I just might.”

He’s sure that if Louis’s piercing blue eyes bulge any farther out of his head they’ll fall out. “You too?”

“Didn’t have a choice, man, my folks died.” Zayn’s told this fib a hundred times before and at this point he’s scared of how easily the lie comes out.

Louis sheepishly stares at the carpeted floor. “I’m sorry, mate.”

“No worries, I managed. ‘Petty crime and all that’. Heh, even managed to get caught up with some big shot dealers and bosses.”

“Oh, like who?”

“Hm, usually Falcone or Vercotti. Smaller dudes. Sometimes bigger people like that creepy guy White, or even Salamanca.”

“You’re kidding! I totally fucked with Salamanca all the time.”

Zayn’s so excited he’s about to scream. “Dude, wait a second. Were you the kid they called the Mover?”

“The what?”

“This little kid who Salamanca and his cronies whined about all the time, always stealing shipments and getting associates arrested and shit. Said their guns always jammed whenever he showed up. I stopped hearing about that kid around two years ago.”

Louis folds his arms and smirks. “Sounds about right.”

“You son of a bitch,” Zayn grins enthusiastically. “You cost Salamanca millions.”

“I should know, I made almost as much.”

“So you’re filthy rich?”

“Well, not anymore, sadly. Cowell fucking confiscated all of my ‘dirty illegal money’ when I first got here. Stupid git, don’t he know it’s all the same.” Louis faces away and shrugs his shoulders until they’re nearly touching his ears. “Can’t believe we’ve so much in common though, it’s absolutely mad.”

“Yeah, same here,” Zayn smiles and sighs. He lets himself lie back onto the bed, fingers folded behind his head as he looks up the ceiling.

“So, d’you have any questions about anything? I imagine you’ll sorta find yourself latching onto me a bit your first term here since, well, you and every other first year here is completely friendless and all. I might sound annoyed sometimes but I don’t actually mind or anything, you know.”

Zayn’s bored and craving a smoke or a beer or both and he can’t help but fast forward to all the classes he’s certainly going to be cutting. He sneers. “What d’ya do for fun around here?”

He’s only just met his new roommate but he can already imagine the fierce glint in his eyes without having to turn his head and look. “Thought you’d never ask.”

*

Louis’s definition of fun is “fags and fiti” or, in American English, a smoke and some good ol’ vandalism of private property. He leads Zayn down and around the dormitory hallways, through a large glass tunnel and a deserted corridor, into what appears to be a basement broom closet but is actually one of several doors to a stowed-away hatch, and soon enough he’s tossing Zayn a discreet silver can of spray paint as they light up, inhale and walk through a large field of knee-high grasses and weeds towards one of the several decrepit warehouses on the periphery of the above-ground campus.

“I can’t believe I’ve never actually done graffiti before,” Zayn thinks out loud as they trudge onward.

“Can’t imagine you had that much free time for it anyways,” Louis coolly replies.

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Zayn resigns.

“Most New Yorkers haven’t got five minutes to spare for this kinda stuff, regardless of whether or not they’re abiding by the law.”

“That’s true. A New York minute’s about seven seconds long.”

“30 Rock?”

“What?”

“That’s a 30 Rock reference.”

“Oh, I don’t know what that is. I just heard somebody say it once. I remembered it because it sounded about right.”

“I think it is.”

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes in some more ash until his lungs begin to ache from the stretching. “So, you’re a third year, you got some friends here, right?”

Louis lets out a noise that’s a mix of a bark and a snort, almost choking on his cigarette. “Nope. Nah.”

“So you come out here and tag this place up all by yourself?”

“Making me feel real self-conscious now, mate.”

“I don’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“Course not.”

“I’m not gonna ask why you don’t have friends or whatever, like, I’m not judging. I just figured you’re a really chill dude and that you probably got other people to hang out here with besides me.”

“I mean, I’m not, like, hiding in a corner and being all emo, I talk to people in classes and whatever, but l haven’t really got anyone I’m that close to. No one here I really care about.”

“Is everyone else here like really full of it or something?”

Louis’s voice strains and his answer starts and stops. “Nah, not at all. Basically everybody’s like super nice and humble and whatever. Most of these kids are orphans or homeless, you know. But like. Ah. I’m anomalous, I guess. Everyone else gets along all nice, and I can’t really, I don’t know, care?”

“I get it. S’nothing wrong with that.” They’re finally stood right in front of the warehouse. Louis withdraws his own can and wordlessly gets to work, spraying over some older design what looks like a large, inverted yellow cloud. Zayn watches, mesmerized by the smoothness of the movements and the paint. He’s sure that not even a minute’s passed before Louis pulls out a second can from his jacket and sprays large red letters over the yellow spark-like shape.

ZAP!

“What’s that?”

“Dunno. It only just occurred to me.” Louis drops the can and traces out a large invisible sign in the air with his hands. “Zayn! Zap!” The hands fall and he turns to examine his own work. “I dunno.”

“Well, I like it,” Zayn faces the portion of the wall immediately before him. “Now, let’s see….”

After nearly two hours have passed, the two boys have drawn cartoons of one another, and dozens more ZAP! insignias, all over the exterior walls. They’ve declared themselves captains of their own exclusive superhero order, and gone through a pack and a half in the meantime. Even if his classes all manage to irrepressibly suck, Zayn decides, at least he’s now sure that he’ll enjoy his time here anyway.


	2. we started something new

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, you'll meet Niall soon enough.
> 
> This one's very brief but that's okay because, by comparison, the third chapter's an eyesore.

When they head back to their dorm, there’s two neatly printed schedules tacked to their door. Louis smirks as he rips his off, and then gently removes and hands over Zayn’s.

 

| 

M

| 

T

| 

W

| 

Th

| 

F  
  
---|---|---|---|---|---  
  
9am

| 

Biology

P 306

| 

 

| 

Chemistry

P 610

| 

 

| 

Biology

P 306  
  
10am

| 

Literature (E)

T 202

| 

Literature (E) 

T 202  
  
11am

| 

Maths P 504

| 

Maths P 504

| 

   
  
12pm

| 

 

| 

 

| 

 

| 

 

| 

   
  
1pm

| 

 

| 

 

| 

 

| 

 

| 

   
  
2pm

| 

Art Q 803

| 

Fitness

Z 001

| 

Fitness

Z 001

| 

Special Instruction

| 

Fitness

Z 001  
  
3pm

| 

   
  
As Zayn gives his new schedule a thorough study, he hears Louis flop onto his bed while remarking, “Since you’re a first year, you don’t get to pick any of your own courses. Way less free time. They try to stick you in a little bit of everything.”

“There’s like. Actual classes on here. English and math and biology.”

“Yeah, lad, everything. Even the boring shit.”

“I don’t think English is so bad. I always figured if I ever got my GED-“

“What’s a GED?”

“It’s a high school diploma for people who didn’t do high school in the normal four years. I always thought if I got mine I’d get a teaching license and teach English.”

“No time for street art but a bit of time for books, then?”

“What little time I had, yeah. No one cares about a couple of stolen books, but God forbid you should ever try and deface public property,” Zayn blithely laments in response, still glancing over his schedule. “What’s ‘special instruction’?”

“During the first week of fitness, someone goes round and watches you using your power. They assign you a special teacher you’ll meet with one on one to work on your power with.”

“For two whole hours?”

“The sky’s the limit.”

“Why only once a week?”

“They push you pretty hard, you’ll need to rest. Especially since you’re taking fitness three times a week on top of that. It don’t look like much on paper, but you’ll see.”

“And this art class?”

“First years are put into random arts classes for each term. There’s art theory, then also music, dance, and acting. The acting one’s the only fun one, honestly.”

“Hm. Not looking forward to it.”

“Stage fright?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s okay. You’ll get over it. Or learn to really, really suppress it.”

As if on cue, Zayn’s stomach growls loudly. “I could go for a coffee.”

“Perfect timing. Dinner period’s just begun.”

*

Zayn’s first time in the dining building is… an experience. More specifically, it’s his first time seeing the whole student body at once. He guesstimates that there’s around three, maybe even close to four, hundred students here. Most are in uniform, white short-sleeve button downs and navy slacks, and the majority of them seem to be about his age but there’s definitely a couple of adults and a handful of tweens among the crowd as well. It’s loud and chatty and the room is buzzing with energy, perhaps everyone’s discussing how tomorrow’s the first days of classes. But what catches him off guard beyond all else is the all the mutations.

There’s plates and forks and knives flying through the air, wings and tentacles and furry skin and animal’s ears and the occasional spout of water or slime or flame. Students are melting in between tile cracks or whizzing along the ceiling or climbing the walls or zooming across the football-stadium-sized dining hall in the blink of an eye, and everybody’s happy. All the sounds are chatterings of unadulterated joy and all the faces brim with smiles.

“What’re ya feeling?” Louis equably asks as they walk over to a line of students along the far wall of the cafeteria.

“Overwhelmed,” Zayn sighs when they’re standing in place.

Louis chuckles. “No, I meant for food.”

“Oh. Well, what is there?”

“Nothing special. Burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, a salad bar. Apples and oranges. Every day there’s like maybe one or two unusual things, like sushi or some kind of weird fruit or vegetable or something. But you’ll get your coffee, so no worries.”

“Yeah.” They stand in silence, plodding forward slowly along with the rest of the line, and Zayn returns to studying the mass of his new fellow students. A monstrous pair of folded bird’s wings, off-white freckled with beige, stands out to him in particular; his eyes venture all around the hall but inevitably keep finding themselves poring over the wings again and again. He’s never seen anything like it. Stretched fully out, those wings probably reach from floor to ceiling, at the very least.

“Checking out Birdboy over there?” he hears Louis comment slyly. He feels his face getting hot, he couldn’t even see that the owner of the wings was a boy since the crowd was so congested.

“Who’s he?”

“Dunno. I guess also a first year. Maybe you’ll be friends.” Zayn uncontrollably cracks a tiny smile at the thought, face still violently hot with blush. “And then you can make heart eyes at him right to his face.”

“Well, I can’t see his face from here, so I guess we’ll have to see.” Zayn grabs a tray, requests the smallest burger, and gets a shiny apple and a cup of steaming black coffee before joining Louis at an otherwise empty, small table in a remote corner of the hall. They’re closer to Birdboy’s table now, but he’s facing in the other direction and so all Zayn can make out from his view is a mess of blonde highlights atop brown roots, and the space uncovered by the boy’s tank top where his massive beige wings meet the pale skin and muscles of his upper back and shoulder blades. He seems to be hunched over and quiet, not really talking or eating. There’s only one other student at his table, a taller and very muscular boy with a buzz cut and a feather tattoo on his forearm, who’s got multiple hot dogs on his tray and appears to be enthusiastically attempting to engage Birdboy in an uncomfortably cordial conversation. Louis must be watching this too because he’s emitting several horselaughs of amusement.

“That’s awkward,” Zayn muses.

“They’re both first years, no doubt,” Louis chortles. He turns and starts on his sandwich, commenting between bites, “It’s hard being a first year here, no one knows anyone, so someone has to take the plunge and just start a conversation, you know. That’s why they give ‘em all roommates, forces you to not keep to yourself all year long.”

“Makes sense. Must suck for any introverts.”

“It does. Most people here are naturally introverted. But, well, we’ve obviously all got a lot in common, so even they usually end up making a few friends.”

“Can I sit with you guys?” A deep, unfamiliar voice from behind Zayn inquires. Zayn whips his head around and meets eyes with a tall, gangly boy with a muddle of brown curls for hair and a collection of scribbles tattooed along his left bicep. In his peripheral vision Zayn can see Louis conspicuously rolling his eyes.

“Sure,” Zayn smiles slightly and gestures to the empty chair beside him. The boy’s eyes widen briefly with surprise as he nods and gingerly sits and sets down his fruit salad, as if expecting that he’s about to be asked to leave.

Louis crosses his arms. “Who’re you?” The question and the tone are both punitive but somehow he manages to sound genuine and gentle underneath.

“M’name’s Harry. I’m from California.” He does seem like he’s just gone for a long beachside stroll, between the ill-fitting tan and the pleasant air of nonchalance to his voice. He clearly wants to befriend his fellow students but seems very unconcerned with impressing them in any way. “LA, that is. And I’m a first year. What about you guys?”

“Louis, third year, New Yorker.”

“Really?”

“Yorkshire born, hence the accent.”

“Oh, okay. What about you?” He smiles so sincerely at Zayn, he feels his walls already coming down for the boy.

“Zayn, first year, I’m also from New York.”

Harry grins. “Cool! Wanna compare schedules?” Before finishing the question he eagerly sticks in his hands in each of the pockets of his unbelievably skinny black jeans and finds a crumpled-up fistful of paper in one of his back pockets. Turns out he has fitness and art at the same time as Zayn, and a politics course with Louis. “Wow, what’re the odds?”

“Indeed,” Louis rolls his eyes, but there’s a glint in there that suggests he’s not as annoyed as he sounds.

“Yeah, right?” Harry looks down at his crumbled schedule. “Where do you guys live? Haven’t seen you before. But then again I only just got here a few hours ago so I haven’t really seen anybody I guess.”

“We’re roommates, we’re in F four fifteen. You should hang out sometime,” Zayn meets Louis’s death glare. Whatever, he admires Harry’s determination to approach them in the first place, he’s not planning on not being receptive to it.

Harry’s grin stretches from ear to ear. “Rad, man! I’d love that. I’m in E two nineteen. I actually haven’t even met my roommate yet. Think it’s a Michael?”

“It?” Louis chortles.

“Well I haven’t met ‘em, didn’t read any papers, so for all I know they’re a girl. Or not. Who knows?” Harry continues to defend himself from Louis’s sniping as Zayn’s focus returns to each of Birdboy’s individual feathers, wondering all the while why on Earth he even cares.


	3. we considered having our voice boxes removed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's super long and I really don't care for how poetic and freeformy it gets toward the tail end but that's honestly how I normally go about my creative writing, it's hard for me to be outright and literal. Sorry. I'm very open to suggestions/comments and potentially collaborating with anyone who takes an especial interest in this work.
> 
> I'm on hiatus right now since I'm finishing up midterms and just beginning to prepare for finals (and also studying abroad next semester!) so you're likely to not be seeing the fourth chapter for a while. :-( My apologies.

The alarm clock blares out besides Zayn’s ear and he reaches out, eyes still closed, to slam it off. He hears the source, still going off, hit the floor with a thud, and an “Oi, mate, shut that off, will you?” slurred between pillows called out from the other end of the room. Zayn slowly and wearisomely opens his eyes as he gets up to shut off and reset the alarm and get ready for his first class. He shrugs on his uniform and grabs his ID (alias: TBD) and his schedule, realizing as he exits the room and ventures down the halls that, not only is he totally unsure of how to navigate this underground labyrinth on his own, but additionally he hasn’t got any school supplies. Well, can he really be blamed? He’s hardly got a penny to his name to spare on pens and papers, plus he was enrolled at SYCO with hardly a day’s notice. He shrugs his shoulders as he rationalizes all of this while following markers along the walls reading “G-Z ->”. As he finds his way, he realizes that the layout of the maze is rather straightforward: all the buildings are immediately adjacent, as if in a straight line, and in alphabetical order. “There’s got to be a quicker way to get all the way to Z,” he thinks as he enters one of the two glass tunnels within the building. Maybe Louis will know some shortcuts.

Before he’s really fully realized it, he’s found the classroom, and a seat in the far back, for his first year biology class. Zayn surveys the room as the professor, a bespectacled middle aged man who insists that his students refer to him by his first name, Charles, goes over the roster. He sees a head of bleached blonde hair sitting in the front row and feels his heart for a split second prepare to start racing only to internalize what he’s seeing and notice that it’s really just a pretty, wispy-haired girl who speaks to the other girls sitting immediately around her with a dense accent he later learns is “particularly northern”. Nope, Birdboy isn’t here. And neither are Louis and Harry, and he won’t be seeing either of them until lunchtime, three hours from now. He feels himself dozing off before he truly even begins to.

*

Morning classes are a boring blur and soon enough Zayn finds himself slowly picking at a plate of fries (“you mean chips”) and chicken fingers and sipping at a coffee while half-listening to Louis and Harry go on and on about their “well fit” politics class instructor, a Flick or Fink or something. From what little Zayn’s ears are actually picking up on, it seems like the conversation is mostly Louis making crude sex jokes and Harry laughing until he’s not breathing right.

Zayn hones in on Louis scoffing, “I can’t believe you’ve hardly been here a full day and you’ve already got a schoolgirl crush” and he realizes, as hinted by Harry’s hyena laughter and a lack of blush, that Louis must be referring to him instead. He feels hot blood creep up his neck as he continues to uninterestedly push his fingers around his tray, as deep in thought as ever.

“Shut up.”

“Have you got any classes with him?” Louis doesn’t change the subject but tries to seem genuinely interested instead of simply teasing.

“Oh, is this Birdbrain we’re talking about?” Harry inquires innocently. Zayn rolls his eyes dramatically and prays he doesn’t look as embarrassed as he feels.

Louis howls. “We’re calling him Bird _boy_ , you knob.”

“Thanks for that, guys, and no, I don’t have any classes with… that kid. Not that I care.”

“Yes you do,” Louis insists in a singsong voice.

Zayn puts every ounce of willpower in his body into keeping his eyes on his food and not scanning the dining hall for feathers for the nth time. He lets out a curt “nope” before shrugging and sipping his coffee.

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Louis can barely let out through his grin.

Zayn’s eyes snap open and he tries to give Louis his best glare. “Please don’t.”

Louis crosses his arms. “Fine, do it yourself, then. He’s not exactly the most popular kid in the world anyways. I’m sure he’d enjoy having a quick awkward chat with you, must be better than having none at all.”

Harry’s earnest expression contrasts sharply with Louis’s condescension. “Do you want some help or something?”

Zayn grips his mug so tight that he’s not sure why it hasn’t broken in his hand. “Just leave it. Stop making a big deal out of it, I just thought his wings were weird, okay? It’s not a crush. I was just, like, a little interested.”

“In him,” Louis smirks.

“In his wings,” Zayn punctuates.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I mean it? Have you ever seen wings that big? On a dude, not even on a bird? I haven’t.”

“Mhmm,” Louis sips his tea and exchanges a look with Harry.

“You really don’t believe me,” Zayn puts his elbows on the table and groans into his hands.

“Not a word of it.”

“Fine, you know what? If he’s in any of my classes, I’ll try to talk to him. I… I promise. Now will you please try to not do anything stupid?”

“Can I say something stupid instead?”

“Not to or about… uh, Birdboy.” Louis and Harry both rejoice at Zayn’s usage of their original nickname, and the three resume their previous discussion of their classes.

*

Zayn learns that the layout of the underground buildings isn’t actually linear, but circular, and that (almost) all of the buildings have nine stories, and there are six cross-campus tunnels for quicker access. “It’s wicked complicated and impossible to explain all in one sitting, you’ll have to explore them and get acquainted on your own,” Louis offers, “And mind you, one of those tunnels is off limits to students but, you know, only if you get caught.” As he heads down the CP tunnel, and silently thanks whoever’s watching over him for not having to walk through two-thirds of the campus to get to class today, he remembers that he’s early, since he’d gotten all excited about taking an actual English class for the first time in working memory, and decides to take his time on his walk over, and mind his surroundings. As he looks around it dawns on him that the campus isn’t any less beautiful just because it’s underground. The thick glass tunnels expose the cavern in which the school is located, he looks up and sees glistening rocks and stalagmites emerging high overhead from the grotto’s ceiling. He can spot the silhouettes of students rushing through the other tunnels above him, ignoring the ones humming past in his own. The campus buildings are visible on either side of the CP tunnel, training facilities on his right, the library and dining hall and administrative offices on his left. The bricks and walls of them are dense and unfriendly, but somehow the conglomeration of them, the uniformity is, well not beautiful per se, but it’s certainly something. It’s eerily reminiscent of the buildings of New York always looming overhead, never smiling down on the crowds walking past.

He exits the tunnel and heads down the stairs to his assigned room for elementary English lit, grabs the first noticed seat in the far back as he’s done with all the classes he’s been to thus far. He absentmindedly surveys the room, seeing but not really internalizing anything important. A blackboard and a whiteboard, projector and a screen, teacher’s desk, teacher’s computer, five rows of six seats for thirty students, only a few other kids have shown up for now since class doesn’t begin for another twenty minutes. His eyes return to his hands, just barely placed on the table before him when he remembers

“You’ve forgotten pen and paper, Mister… Malik, is it?” Zayn snaps his head upward to investigate the shadow over his seat, belonging to a twig-like man with a wild upward-bound dark mop of hair, sporting gray skinnies and a button down. He’s examining a clipboard in the crook of his stick-thin arm. A handful of uncomfortable chuckles sound from other students in the room.

“Don’t know where to get any,” Zayn replied, feeling nervous but sounding presumptuous.

“There’s a supply store in the library, should you be interested in putting any effort into your classes this term,” the instructor returns the attitude. He looks familiar. Zayn thinks he’s seen him once in a blur. “How did you manage in your classes yesterday?”

“Professors told me to get some, didn’t say where.”

The professor’s eyes finally meet Zayn’s, and his expression turns from irritated to thoughtful. “You know what? Just go right now and pick up whatever it is you need. Get a notebook or a binder or something for this class. I know we’re just doing housekeeping and syllabus review today, but I want you to be quick about it anyway, understand? If you even think about skipping this class, I’ll have Cowell know before you can finish putting the thought together.”

“Yes sir,” Zayn nods as he gets up and speed walks out of the room, feeling the heat of his classmates’ inquisitive stares on his back. The moment his other foot’s out the door, he slaps his forehead, thinking he should have gone to get some paper before class, since he was so early today and had had the time. As he continues to rush without running through the outer tunnel, he remembers where he had seen his English professor before. That was Professor Grimshaw (“call me Grimmy, or Grims, or Nick, or Heffalumpagus for all I care”) and he’d been there to receive Zayn when he first got here, not even two full days ago.

Soon enough Zayn finds himself on the fifth floor of one of the two library buildings, helping himself to complimentary pens and notebooks and some brushes for his art class and wow okay they even have Herschel backpacks by the dozen here so Zayn snags a black one of those as well. He fills the bag, slings it over his shoulder, nods to the retailer reading a newspaper by the storefront (Zayn still thinks it’s a bit strange that this floor is referred to as the ‘supply store’ even though everything’s for grabs but he’s not one to ask questions) and heads back to the outer tunnel. He’s not even totally sure what it is that’s on his mind but he’s certainly walking in another one of his scatterbrained stupors because he isn’t fully conscious until he’s at the front of the classroom, legs firmly rooted like stone, staring down the Birdboy who’s claimed his seat. He catches himself gawking at the boy, at the monstrous wings with their uppermost feathers grazing the ceiling, and being gawked at in return by him and nearly everybody else in the room, and decides, instead of causing any kind of scene, to grab the seat beside Birdboy and do his damnedest to evade all the perturbed stares. He feels the boy’s eyes boring into the side of his face as he tries to concentrate on withdrawing a pen and a marble notebook and gazing in Grimshaw’s general direction. But he can feel his ears directing their attention to Birdboy, not quite picking up on any sound but nevertheless hypersensitively anticipating something, some kind of comment, and waiting to flinch at a single lungful of word. After no more than two or three minutes of an eternity of nervous tapping the pen cap against the notebook cover, he gets what he never wished for.

“Alright, mate?” a thick Irish accent quietly remarks, sounding impassive but also annoyed. Zayn feels every hair on his upper body, arms, ears, probably even brows, stand on end. Without turning his head, and without interrupting the pen tapping, he responds with,

“Just fine.”

“Sure?”

“Yep.”

“Then could ya-“ A thoughtful pause and a low exhale. “What’s with the tapping?”

Still not looking, but beginning to feel an oncoming blush, a wave of embarrassed blood coursing through his cheeks and neck, Zayn apologizes softly and closes the middle of the pen in his fist, staring at it, wondering why it’s not folding or breaking in his clench and for some reason hoping that it does. Anything to distract, anything to stop himself from saying something stroppy or stupid. He’s otherwise pretty good about getting and keeping his shit together but right now there’s some horrible raucous beast clawing around his insides, demanding him to speak, insisting he focus on Birdboy and nothing else, that nothing else in the world competes with his fascination with those wings. Maybe it’s an overwhelming fascination, or maybe it’s a gripping nausea, more probably some horrible combination of the two, Zayn can’t decide and it’s as though his brain and his stomach are both doing laps. He’s barely maintaining an upright posture and a neutral expression as it is and suddenly he wants to laugh at how ridiculous his body and mind are being about quite literally nothing when he ought to be, and at this point would rather be, focusing on class instruction.

“Seriously, mate, what is it? It’s like you’re about to keel over.” Instead of floundering about to try and articulate an answer, Zayn reacts by letting himself steal a split-second glance at the wings, noticing as his vision flits back to the front of the room that the boy has, even despite his presumable annoyance, these glittering powder blue eyes. Zayn can hear and almost feel the boy’s frown as he adds, “It’s the wings, innit?”

“Nah, man.” Still not looking. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

“S’not like you’d be the first.”

“What d’you mean?” What are you so afraid of? What are you so afraid of? What are you so afraid of?

“Y’know. Gawpin’ at me ‘n stuff.”

“I’m not gawping.”

“You were.”

“Weren’t.”

“Everyone does.”

“Even here?”

“Yeah.”

Zayn looks down at his closed notebook, his hands on the table, wishing to put his head down for a nap and never awaken again. He thinks he can hear the boy’s feathers tittering ever so slightly about and he decides that there is no hatred in the world as great as his hatred for his own self in this moment. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Dunno.” Zayn stares into the black and white specks of his notebook, letting his eyes faze in and out of focus, and waits about a minute before retrying to pay attention to Grimshaw going over the syllabus for the quarter. After around twenty minutes of review pass, talk of biweekly written assignments and a list of classics to be reviewed, Huxley, Sartre and Updike included, Zayn’s positive he can’t take it anymore and then

“What’s yer name?”

He’d managed to go from freaking out about to nearly entirely forgetting about the boy beside him, and he turns his eyes to meet the others so quickly that the rest of his head and neck can barely keep up. The eyes are still shimmering. He wonders if the boy can feel the glitter in his sockets. “’m Zayn.” He keeps a straight face.

“I’m Niall.”

Zayn lets himself shrug his shoulders. “We both have weird names. Cool.” Niall grins, all wide and toothy. The best word Zayn can find to describe it is naïve, but less in the sense of social awkwardness and more so in that of a genuine inexperience, like he was born yesterday and still thinks everything on earth is beautiful. He can’t remember the last time anyone has seemed that way to him, he thinks perhaps it was never.

*

After lunch, or rather a cup of coffee and repeated evasions of Louis’s endless comments and accusations (“So you’ve exchanged names then? Surely numbers too? What about rings? I call best man! I’ve called it! God, I’ve always wanted to plan a bachelor party.”), Zayn and Harry walk along the LZ tunnel to the student gymnasium building. As they head to class together it occurs to Zayn that this is actually the first time he’s been totally alone with Harry, and he’s preparing himself for the discomfort only to see that Harry is unfazed and has actually immediately begun to chat with him.

“I wonder what the fitness class is gonna be like. Like, everyone’s got different powers and everything, how’re we gonna have time for everybody to work on their own thing in such a big class in such little time?”

“I think it’s just a general fitness class, like general exercise. The special instruction thing is where we’re gonna work more on that stuff, I think.”

“Oh, right. Well even then we’ll still get to see some other people’s powers, right? That’ll be cool. Oh, what’s yours? If, uh, you don’t mind.”

“Nah, I don’t mind.” Zayn gives a small smile. He’s afraid of seeming too rude or critical, after all Harry means no harm. “I can turn invisible.”

“That’s awesome! That’s a really cool one.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told. I don’t think I’m very impressive or anything, though. But whatever, what about you?”

Harry’s big, permanent smile falters. “I, uh… mine’s kinda stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna.”

“No, nah, I will, it’s only fair.” Harry looks ahead instead of at Zayn, and his voice gets quieter. “I paralyze people.”

“What? That’s a cool power. What’s the matter with that? You make it sound like you’re ashamed.”

Harry frowns and studies his shoes as he walks. Crap. “I don’t get to choose when it happens.”

Zayn loathes the quiet, he wishes it had a tangible form so it could grab it and pummel it into the floor. “That sucks, man. I’m… I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that.”

They meet eyes again and it looks as if Harry’s trying his hardest to hide the transparent melancholy in his green. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say that. I just… I can’t touch people anymore, y’know? Just to be careful.” Zayn notices Harry’s hands stuffed all the way down his pockets.

“Hey, but you’re here now, right? So like, I bet it’ll get better. And you’ll be able to control it.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, I bet you’ll get to control it and stuff. I mean, everyone’s here to improve, so it’s only right.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” The smile returns. “I can’t wait.”

*

The fitness class is general exercise as Zayn had predicted, run by two instructors, Pauly and Jarvis. Pauly runs cardio and Jarvis oversees strength training and Zayn quickly learns to hate all of it. He can run and bike fairly fast, sure, but he has scarcely any endurance, and even less strength to speak of when it comes to weights or Jarvis’s lengthy and horrendous ab circuit. Now and then throughout the two hour class, the changes in line ups and exercise rotations, he thought he heard Harry and other kids too ooh-ing and aah-ing at some students showing off their powers but Zayn was too sweaty and exhausted and intent on finishing up his circuits quickly in order to pay any mind. The class size was huge, like sixty or seventy at once, and the gymnasium and track went practically as far as the eye could see. Zayn was so small, yet he couldn’t escape a strange desire to go unnoticed for as long as possible, as if he weren’t miniscule enough as it were.

He’s running laps with other boys when he hears a deep “Malik!” call his name. Nobody seems to notice. “Zayn Malik!” The accented voice repeats. Bewildered, Zayn turns to Harry, who’s jogging beside him. “Who’s calling my name?”

“What? Oh, that must be Cowell.”

“Must be? You didn’t hear him?”

“Can’t have. He’s calling out names telepathically, Pauly said. I haven’t gone yet, so maybe he’s going in alphabetical order.”

Zayn tries to not look surprised as he nods and trots over to Pauly, but he can’t help it. Mindspeak, huh? So learning about people’s powers really was as exciting as Harry’d made it out to be.

Pauly’s scribbling away on his clipboard and doesn’t lift his head from the paper as Zayn inquires, “Cowell called for me?”

“Name?”

“Zayn Malik.”

“Great, Cowell’s by the inner tunnel, can’t miss the fella. See you next class.”

“I can leave after?”

Pauly looks at him and shrugs. “Yeah, class is already half over so unless Cowell’s really quick about it then I see no point in you coming back. Looks like you already worked up a sweat anyways so my job’s done for today.”

Zayn can’t hide his shit-eating grin as he decides that he lives for early dismissal. “Cool. Thanks.” He wonders if he’s meant to head back to the lockers and change out of his gym clothes before meeting the headmaster for the very first time, but the thought doesn’t strike him as more than half-serious until he’s already at the fifth floor lobby being greeted by a deep and booming “Hello, Mister Malik” that none of the few other students on the level seem to hear. A domineering figure in all-black attire walks over, an aged man with dark silver hair and a powerful sneer. Could one human being look any more unfriendly?

“Good to finally meet you.” The man is about a foot away from Zayn’s face, giving what appears to be the gentlest smile he’s capable of offering, yet his mouth is unmoving. “My apologies if my mind-talk caught you off-guard. Would you prefer I speak normally?”

Feeling very lesser, Zayn can only let out a meek, “I, uh… erm, it’s fine, sir.”

“Good. Let’s head to my office for a bit, shall we?”

*

For his special instruction sessions, Zayn is assigned to a sheet-white redheaded guy named Ed. Cowell’s shown him a brief profile on the dude before dismissing him and Zayn heads back to his dorm fully confident that there is no way his instructor is gonna be of any use. The guy’s literally like barely two years his senior and his power is some vague useless shit involving “auditory stimuli” or, in plain English, music and poetry and the senses and well yeah, it sounds a little like horseshit. Also totally having nothing to do with invisibility, so that’s additionally promising.

“How’d it go?” Louis chimes the exact moment the door slides open in response to Zayn’s ID swipe. In response, Zayn falls face-first onto his bed, feet still on the floor.

Louis chuckles from his position on the carpeted floor as he tosses a hackeysack between his hands. “You’re still in your gym clothes, mate.” Zayn’s eyelids shoot back in stark realization.

“I should go back and change, I guess?” he mumbles into the comforter.

“Seems that way.”

“Alrighty then,” Zayn sighs as he trots right back out. At least he now had something to keep him on his feet, he’d forgotten his backpack in his gym locker as well. Passively thinking about nothing and everything all at once, as was the usual, he soon enough finds himself wandering along the inner tunnel, walking past fellow chattering students, minding the beautiful underground scenery outside the glass through his peripherals and as if out of nowhere

the wings again.

He feels his breath hitch in the bottom of his throat, the air on the precipice of shooting out his body like a rocket. He holds it inside, instead letting out a “Hey, uh, it’s Niall, right?” as he gingerly steps forward. It was one of those many moments that felt so out of touch with reality, despite its lifelike triviality, that it was as if he was watching himself approach the boy instead of being the one to control his body and mind and do it himself.

The head of blonde whips around. “Hi.”

Zayn stands beside him. Niall had been stationary, standing fixed like a tree, looking out the glass. Probably thinking of something else. Who’d have thought that it was underground where one could most easily lose themselves in the clouds? “What’re ya up to?”

Niall’s mouth twitches and he doesn’t make direct eye contact with Zayn. “Nothin’ really.”

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me anything.”

Niall turns away and pauses, mulling over his words. “No offense meant.”

“None taken, man. I see I’m keeping you from your thoughts. Trust me, I don’t like to be bothered either.”

“Ha, you’re not botherin’ me.”

The pause turns from thoughtful to marginally uncomfortable. “Well, um, I’m sorry anyways. I’ll, uh, I’ll go now. Just thought I’d say hi.” Zayn tries to sound and seem gentle even though he realizes his words may sound scathing. He wishes he could never talk, at least never to Niall, to whom he seems to always say everything wrong.

Niall looks into his eyes, his gleam just like before. “Hi.” He shows some teeth, his tone having turned from reticent to playful.

Zayn returns a breathy smile, and notices that his breathing is nervous. There was something about Niall’s face that seemed to always catch him off-guard, something ethereal, something he was probably always going to feel unworthy of. “Hi.” Another pause.

Niall gives a one-note chuckle. “Well, is there anything ya wanted t’say ta me?”

Another pause. Another breathy, nervous, painful, irreparably humiliating laugh. “Well, uh, I saw you the other day in the cafeteria and I just wanted to let you know that if y’wanna sit with me and my friends, or hang out, y’know, you can.” Zayn finishes his stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid remark as quickly as he can without letting it dissolve into outright incoherence. As he falls silent, he reaches for an invisible itch between his shoulder blades, tight and taut with a knowledge that he was the most uncomfortable thing alive.

Niall tilts his head the slightest bit, curious and intrigued, an owl bemusedly watching its naïve prey scurry about below. “Thanks. I’ll take ya up on that.”

“Good. Great.” Zayn lets himself bore into the blue for a moment more. “See ya ‘round.” He ducks his head and continues down the tunnel, denying himself the chance to look back. He felt, almost knew, that if he caught Niall watching him go, the image would burn itself into his retinas and haunt him for the rest of his life.


End file.
